


Oh Never Leave Me

by GoggledMonkey



Category: Goblin Market - Christina Rossetti
Genre: Bad Poetry, F/F, Implied goblin orgy, Post-Canon, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2805653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoggledMonkey/pseuds/GoggledMonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura eats only bread, Lizzie doesn't sing, and winter closes in around them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh Never Leave Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snowynight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowynight/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide to you sinngrace! I had so much fun with your prompt! Please enjoy the "fruits" (get it? ahhaahaha) of my labor.

# Oh Never Leave Me

 

Bread again.

Light, white, dreary bread.

She takes neither jam nor honey with it.

She only adds the scrape of butter to appease Lizzie’s sad eyes.

The butter hardly appeases either of them.

“Bread again? Would you have some eggs as well? Some bacon maybe?”

“No. Thank you.”

“Are you sure you want nothing more?”

Yes Laura wants more.

She wants a thousand flavorful fruits dancing on her tongue slipping down her throat in a coat of syrup.

She thinks of phantom voices cooing,

_Come buy come buy_

_Sweet to the tongue_

_But blinds the eyes._

_Taste and try_

_Fruits shiny and sweet._

_Pluck them suck them_

Laura chews her bread pretending to be thoughtful but actually trying not to think.

“Feed a fever starve a cold,” she says finally.

“I thinks it’s the other way around.” Lizzie’s hand is soft and warm when she lays in upon Laura’s brow. The feeling is more delicious then a thousand fruits or a million different hands touching anywhere else.

“You don’t feel warm.” Lizzie takes her hand mouth pinched with concerned.

Laura tries to lift her head to meet Lizzie’s eyes.

But Lizzie has a small bruise speckled and red like a strawberry on the underside of her jaw. She has another one hidden by her dress on her shoulder. That one is larger and more plum in colour. These bruises are so unlike the pinch blue bruises on her legs. Here Lizzie is marked by kisses from a hungry mouth.

Laura never knew till that night that kisses could leave such marks.

And it is not, she is sure, that Lizzie is too delicate for kisses. Rather, gross unnatural kisses sully the skin.

Laura dares not think on it and dares not look in Lizzie’s eyes. She drops hers and stares at her plate: the blue china that was her mother’s.

“I’m just not very hungry sister.”

She thinks saying sister will stop this strange unnatural hunger.

Laura’s eyes flick up to the bruise again.

The word stops nothing.

The bread dries up her throat and stick painfully but it is no more than she deserves.

After breakfast Lizzie goes out to care for the animals. Laura washes the dishes and dusts. These light chores allow Laura to think when she would rather not, but she is too weak and wobbly in the legs to help outdoors, so Lizzie, good Lizzie, does it all.

Though there is much to do in the cottage to prepare for winter, even this preparation is winding down. The last of the year’s honey has been taken. The cows have dried up. Soon the chickens will stop laying until spring.

At the end of the day, when all the chores have been done, Lizzie will not let Laura come with her to get water. She latches the door and goes to the glen alone.

If the days seem long, the night is even longer.

They used to lie together arm in arm like folded papers, like rose petals still in bud, like marrow and bone, clasped together like hands. But now, Laura can only play that she is normal, and holds herself as stiff as a board. Lizzie nuzzles into her but Laura makes her nuzzle marble. She holds herself so still and tries to make her breathing so quiet and so natural that she can only think of her breathing. The quiet breaths she is forcing are shallow and make her ribs ache.

She closes her eyes and awakes in an orchard.

The air is warm and sweet, the sun light yellow. The trees are a bounty of apples all kinds; crisp greens, honey-sweet pinks, juicy golds and great stately reds. There is a rush of saliva to her mouth from the apple’s floral scents. Laura walks through the trees, their long round leaves like fat green fingers reaching for her. She stops and reaches too, past the leaves for the ruddy bounty hidden there.

She has plucked the perfect apple. Its skin is ruby and she can almost see herself reflected in its sheen. She cannot help her tremble of anticipation as she brings it to her hungry mouth. But before she can bite it trembles back at her.

She had not noticed the apple’s mouth before and it rears itself open and wide. Opened wide, this strange mouth reveals a row of teeth, fangs dripping venom, thick and glossy. These fangs, these great teeth are a warning.

“Come buy.” The apple hisses and its juices will be so sweet.

_“But Luara, We should not peek at goblin men. Who knows what soil they feed their hungry thirsty roots.”_

The ground which she had not looked at is too dark, tar black, and spongy like dead flesh. But the apple is so red, its scent so sweet. Are these teeth even a warning or more temptation?

“Kiss me. Suck my juices.” The apple pleads.

And she can’t not, biting into the apple as it tears her apart.

She awakes all at once in a rush of air. Lizzie has pressed herself close and her head rests about Laura’s heart. Lizzie’s grip is tight but she is also a deep sleeper so Laura manages to wiggle away and stares at the ceiling until the sun rises.

Another day.

More bread.

“Will you eat something more? Anything? I will get it for you.”

Laura thinks of apples.

There are apples in the cellar; her sister’s cheeks are apple blushed with the cold lovely begging for touch.

Laura takes neither and eats her bread.

Another day. Another month. Things do not get better.

Lizzie knows what has happened. The Goblin Men’s fruits have left something queer behind in her bones. This kernel-stone of a twisting alien plant had been tucked behind her heart and had grown in there dark making her think such thoughts. Making her wants such wants.

_“Oh kiss me suck my juices”_

The frosts comes most mornings, and the days are small and the nights great.

Lizzie still tries to feed her.

“Would you have more than just bread? Some soup? These sausages are so fine” Lizzie puts her love the food but Laura wants more love than meat and drink can offer. She would, and should, take these sausages and fill her mouth with meat and spices but so too would she take her sister and fill her mouth with so much more.

Even with the fire, the house seems cold to Laura. Perhaps it’s because Lizzie does not sing as she works, but bites her lip and looks hauntingly at Laura.

A Sunday comes grey and misty.

A benefit of being so poorly is that she has not been expected to make the trek to the church on Sundays. Although Laura had always enjoyed church, now she fears that ‘something’ will happen if she crosses the threshold. For there must be some divine punishment in store for her.

Lizzie wants to stay with her.

“Go before the snows come and you cannot go until spring”

“The village knows you have been ill. It would be wrong of me to leave you.”

“Go. I’ve forced you to stay with me too long.”

“You have forced me to do nothing I don’t want.”

“Go.”

“Perhaps the pastor will come to visit as you have been so ill.”

Laura shudders at the thought, “But he is ageing. You would not want him to walk here in these weathers. Go. Let him know how much better I am getting.”

Lizzie finally relents.

Laura regrets sending her sister away and sneaks to the back gate to watch Lizzie walk across the field until she disappears behind a dell. Without another soul the house is too still and full of ghosts. She should, since its Sunday, read psalms but they keep the bible in mother’s old room and Laura is loath to go in there. The wall paper in that room stares like disapproving eyes.

However without Lizzie the day stretches before her like a daunting lonely task.

Songs dry in her throat. Her fingers are too clumsy for needle and thread. She sees creatures in the corners. She is too restless. She is too alone.

She finally decides to make Lizzie a cake. Who deserves a cake more than her caring sister? Laura can also put love in her food. She gets eight wax covered eggs and a pound of butter from the cellar and sets to work. Pounding the butter is cathartic and soon the house is awash in sugar and lemon scents.

When she pulls the cake steaming from the oven her stomach gurgles at the smell.

She stares at it and smells it. Finally she relents and cuts a sliver. The taste isn’t ephemeral. Her cake is not the best cake but it is good. It is far richer then the fair she has been allowing herself and still she takes a second piece. It is somehow better than the first.

Laura looks around the room, the shadowy creatures are no more, and there are no disapproving eyes in the wall paper. Perhaps even further, there are no goblin men. Perhaps there never was. What if the whole thing was a fever dream?

She laughs at the thought chortling over her cake like a dwarf with his gold.

The slices of cake filling her belly she sees no reason not to add sloth to her crimes. She takes off only her slippers presses her face into Lizzie’s pillow and falls asleep.

She awakes from the restless sleep of wasting. Her hair droops by her face in dull grey ringlets, the skin sags from her bones and her breath is laboured and wet. Lizzie’s return has awakened her and she struggles to sit up as her sister walks into the room.

“Lizzie? Where were you?”

“I have been to the glen to fetch your cure.”

“Oh Lizzie, did you taste the goblin’s fruit? Your life will waste away ruined in my ruin!”

“Eat me, drink me, make much of me!” and Lizzie draws forward from the shadowed doorway and sparkles in the candle light.

Instead of dripping in juices she is a radiant gem. The alluring scarlet of the pomegranate seeds makes her skin translucent and tight with juice like a ruby turned fruit flesh. Her hair is lemon curls her are eyes citrus bright. She brings with her the tropical exotic scents of the goblin market: the sharp citrons, the soft peach.

“What has happened to you?”

But Lizzie answers not and instead steps closer laying her hand against Laura’s neck. The touch is cool and crisps and sends into shivers. She presses nearer to the hand.

“Oh, hug me, kiss me, and suck my juices.”

And with that Laura is unable to stop. She wraps her arms around her sister and draws her in. They press lip to lip. She is sweet and tart and unbelievably luscious. Laura opens wide to imbibe all. But Lizzie is just like the pomegranate seed, gone in a burst of juice. Laura has consumed her entirely except for the smear of red juice on her lips.

She gasps from the bed, and lurches outside to vomit up cake and nightmares all.

Lizzie returns hours later and upon seeing the cake her face lighting up with her smile dimples appearing on each cheek.

“Baking. On a Sunday,” She tries to scold in jest but her voice is too bright. With the cake’s missing pieces, Lizzie doesn’t hound her at all about eating.

It’s a Sunday blessing. Laura smiles for her sister all evening until her face hurts.

And the ache in her belly keeps her awake, another blessing for then she cannot dream any more.

More days.

Lizzie sees the cake as a turning point and cannot keep the joy out of her movements and voice. Lizzie sings again humming as she works.

Laura doesn’t work, just leans against the wall of the breezeway by the stool where they pluck chickens and shell peas. Lizzie bustles like a happy bee, going from cow barn to chicken coop, her soft voice cutting through the crisp air.

_“Oh never leave me, oh don’t deceive me”_

As she buzzes about, Mr. Johnson pulls up in his green pony cart to drop off the last of their wood load. Their cottage sits on the edge of his farmland and Laura and Lizzie, as their mother had before them, keep the bees that pollenate his crops.

He’s a quiet man but her asks after Laura’s health sincerely and makes a pleased noise at Lizzie’s positive response. It’s not until he’s completed unloading his cart and Lizzie is handing over their last few jars of honey that he asks Lizzie if they would not come to his house to winter instead.

“Shame if anything happened you here alone. We have the room for your animals in the barn.”

Laura has a sudden memory that he’d asked the same thing many months ago as she wasted away. Wouldn’t Lizzie not come to their house? And Lizzie had said no then too. From her sick bed Laura should have sent Lizzie away. Instead she lay quietly and allowed Lizzie to run her fingers through the grey limp strands from Laura’s head and sang softly and Laura could barely make out.

_“How could you use a poor maid so?”_

She had wanted to confess her sins and that she is not a poor maid any longer but did not want those tender hands to leave her; she did not want Lizzie to leave.

Mr. Johnson finishes the work and climbs back into his cart.

“If you girls change your minds, you are welcome.”

Lizzie waves him off and turns to stacking singing as she does. A new song now.

 _“Lavender's green, diddle diddle_  
 _Lavender's blue,_  
 _You must love me, diddle diddle_ **_  
_** _'Cause I love you.”_

“Perhaps we should go to the Johnson’s for the winter.” Laura says to Lizzie’s back. She can still hear the pony cart rumbling back up to the farm. Lizzie starts a half formed “diddle” dying on her lips.

“Whatever for?”

“Well…Thomas for one.” Thomas, Mr. Johnson’s son with his black hair and cow eyes for Lizzie.

“Thomas?” as though she’d never heard the name. “What does he have to do with anything?”

“He’s sweet on you. He’d marry you if you looked towards him.”

“Marry him?! And leave our cottage? And what of you?”

“Well I could marry too,” though she is much less certain of that. “Barney.” She says finally. “He would have me.”

“Barney? The store clerk? But I thought you found him so dull.”

“I should be happy with my plain bread.”

“No no no no.” Lizzie shook her head hair flying wildly about. “We do not need to marry yet, and your health is returning. Why would we leave our home and go to someone else’s? Why would I ever leave you?”

She does not say you should leave before I ruin you.

She does not say that maids, even sisters, even Irish twins like they always leave each other and that is the way of it.

She does not say anything, turns away and ignores Lizzie’s questions and pleading looks.

Still they sleep in the same bed, but the space between them is cold.

She awakes and thinks it was perhaps fortunate that Jennie did waste away with longing so that her friends and family could weep her passing instead of wallow in her shame. Unlike Laura, who displays her shame while her belly blossoms and swells as winter shriveled the forest around their cottage.

But even as the town shuns her, Lizzie holds her close. Even when the birth pains come and they are chased into the forest, Lizzie never leaves her and would be her sister, her midwife and her salvation.

Would the babe have an elephant trunk, wombat tail and goat horns? Would it slither across the nursery or galump on furry paws or flit on glossy wings? What creature lay inside her?

She looked where Lizzie knelt between her legs, but in her sister’s hands was no baby, but curling leaves. For Laura then realised that it was not Goblin seed that had taken root but rather a garden has cultivated in the hot house within her, gestated from all the seeds not spit out.

Brambles of raspberry and blackberry, curling strawberry vines, whippy pomegranate trees, the strange wild fronds of the pine apple and banana exited her until she was hollow as the rinds she had left behind that night.

The garden, alien and queer, brings hot breezes and the calls of strange birds. Laura realises Lizzie is gone.

“Lizzie? Lizzie!”

She struggles to get up to run and find Lizzie but the brambles which she birthed hold her to the ground. Lizzie does not return no matter how loud she calls.

While she screams in her dream, she whispers in the bedroom. Also Lizzie sleeps deep.

The nightmare left her exhausted and dazed. It is not until the watery winter light trickles into the bedroom that she begins to wake. She is alone in the bedroom, Lizzie has indeed left her.

Laura hears voices in the garden she wonders if Mr. Johnson has returned. Or, the thought sending a stab of jealously into her heart, perhaps it is Thomas. The thought of Thomas talking to her sister drives her from her bed and outside where fresh fallen snow has blanketed the world.

It takes a few moments to realize that it is not a person talking to Lizzie but rather a group of five goblins pressed against the garden fence leering up at her. They are dressed almost amusingly, like players in a farce in colourful velvet coats with fur trimmed hoods. The shadows of the hood cannot hide the pointed ears and pointed teeth, the yellow eyes and wiggling whiskers adoring their different shaped faces. They are even more shocking to see in the midmorning light and not in the purple of twilight. Their clothing, and feathers, and fur are garish and unnatural against the new snow on the ground.

“Is this not the pretty maid who comes by our brook?” The one with owl tuffs asks like they are neighbors at a social. “And is the weather not turning?”

“Yes. It has gotten cold,” The brothers agree.

“So cold and dreary.”

“Wet and misty.”

“You need a delight.”

“Something to rid winter’s dearth”

“Come see come see such wonders we have.”

“Trinkets of all manner.”

“All your winter desires met.”

“Furs we have you never have seen, softer than rabbit warmer than lamb.”

“A flower crown to wreath your head?”

“Golden combs or fancy lace?”

“Silk slippers from the orient?”

But Lizzie, good Lizzie is demure and kind, “Good gentlemen you have nothing I wish to buy-“

“Buy? Nay pretty maid it is soon Yuletide!

Time to gift strangers strange gifts

Come and sup with us.”

“Sit on satin pillows.”

“Rest dear, eat with us.”

“Feast with us.”

“Treat with us.”

“Such gifts we have.”

“Drinks to warm the belly.”

“Hot cocoa and smoky dark tea.”

“Buttered rum and spiced wines.”

“Coffee and eggs hot.”

“Mulled port and steaming purple wine”

“Foods to warm your soul”

“Winter pottage thick with suet”

“Goose with crackling skin”

“Minced pies and cold eels pies.”

“Oysters and beef.”

“Turtle soup and boar’s head.”

“Roast venison and carrots in cream.”

“Sweets for a sweetie.”

“Marzipan and sweetmeats.”

“Chestnuts and Popped corns.”

“Sugar almonds and dates.”

“Turkish delight in pink or yellow.”

“Trifle and lemon custard.”

“Ginger snaps and shortbread.”

“Toothsome toffees and candied oranges.”

“Sultanas and raisins!”

Laura moves closer, drawn in as much by the cooing voices as the wonders they describe. Her steps take her to behind her sister, and finally the cat faced one locks eyes with her and leers over Lizzie’s shoulder.

She remembered his soft velvety paws sliding up her leg and she shivers.

Her insides quiver.

“This was a maid we once knew.” He says.

“This was a maid.” The serpent agrees with a wink.

“But we did not sell any fruit.” The masked ratel says confused.

“True,” his feathered brother agrees, “And we did not give. How come you to be so rosy?”

They turn their eyes on her, some stretching tall to see over the fence, some cocking heads.

“…you covered her in juice and pulp. She came to me this way.” Laura answers dazed as much by the question and their eyes as she is by the memory of Lizzie stained purple.

“You do remember,” Lizzie breaths eyes wide.

Laura has not much time to be startled by this exclamation because the Goblins become cacophony chortling delighted.

“Oh! Is that how you smuggle forbidden fruit.”

“Inside more forbidden fruit.”

“And we thought we were calling on a maid.”

“Perhaps this is not much of a maid then.”

Lizzie’s cheeks blazed.

Laura should say something defend her sister as she is the wretch, not dear Lizzie. But she is frozen. She and her sister have both acknowledged that night that kiss and the horrid, horrid goblin men laugh and snigger over it.

“There is a power in kisses.”

“But that’s no secret.”

“And it is maids we are interested in.”

The rat throws up his paws, “Well if there are no maids then, I suppose, our business is done.”

“A ripe pear is quick to rot. The sweetest fruit flesh is the drupe.”

“And I would make an exception for yearling twins. Rare.”

“I would make an exception her dulcet tunes. Succulent.”

“I would make an exception for the fun of it. Delightful.”

“I would make an exception for another lock of golden tresses. Unsullied of course. Such we would trade for it.”

“If you wish to trade, it’s not a gift is it?” Lizzie’s voice cold and shockingly rude draws Laura away from the cat eyes she had been staring into.

“Did you not take our wares to those it was not given with no payment?” The rat faced one sneers.

“Yes, fair is fair,” the cat one purrs.

“Fair is you were paid and your wares corruption.”

“Our wares are the best!”

“Your sister is corrupt.”

“Ask her what she wants.”

“How dare you!” Lizzie spits at them grabbing Laura’s hand and wrenching herself between Laura and the goblins. “She wants for nothing and your wares are not welcome. And…and you should not speak to ladies so nor call when no one is here to chaperon. Good day sirs!”

They grumble behind them and call out nasty names.

With the heavy door slammed between the sisters and the goblins Lizzie rounds upon Laura her eyes blazing. “Why do they tempt you so? What are they offering that I cannot give?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer but flies to the kitchen and grabs seemingly at random the salt cellar and scissors.

“What are those for?”

“Iron and salt drive away fairies and other creatures. Perhaps it works on them.” She goes to open the door but Laura grabs at her.

“Oh Lizzie, don’t go back out there.”

Lizzie wrests out of Laura’s grip eyes still hot.

“Do they not try to barter with me every evening? They have nothing I wish! Just stay here. I will be back.”

Lizzie closes the door behind her and leaves Laura alone. And unholy wail builds up inside her but she clamps down on it and releases only a pained whimper.

The goblins were correct. She was corrupt. A rotten pear. Lizzie had nothing to fear from the goblins because her soul was not covered in cankers.

Laura was on her feet and in a moment her shawl was around her head and she was out the back door.

It is snowing again but she pays no mind. Where she means to go she knows not. To the Johnson’s farm for shelter? To that haunted glen for temptation? Instead her feet run, run her ragged until she is ready to collapse and she is outside the church yard.

Jeanie’s grave cold grave the head stone still clean and new. There is a red paper flower with a green crepe steam adorning it. This sad flower, becoming wet in the snow, depletes the last of her strength and she falls to her knees keening.

She should be like Jeanie. She should have died too to spare Lizzie such sorrow.

She does not mean to sleep but when she does the darkness is a blessing.

She awakes to Lizzie’s voice calling to her. She is certain that this is another nightmare of fruit and lust but her eyes open to grey graveyard and Lizzie rushing to her from the gate.

“Oh if there had not been snow how would I have found you?” and Laura thinks Lizzie is still angry but then she sees the tears. “Would you just lie in this church yard?

Lizzie wrapped her arms around Laura tears wetting the crook of her neck. Laura could not bear to cause her such pain.

“Oh no no no. Don’t cry Lizzie. Please don’t cry.” Guilt claws her insides and she cries too.

“Oh Laura Laura,” Lizzie sobbed clinging, “I could not find you here. I could not see you in a grave that bears no flowers. And if you go I would follow.”

“You shouldn’t say such things!”

“But I must for it is true. And all your misery is my fault. I have done thing to you!”

“Never!” she yelps as this absurdity.

“It is my fault that this has happened to you. I was a coward and I ran home.”

“No.”

“But I did I covered my eyes and ran. I left you!”

“But I looked upon the Goblin men. I took their fruits and so much more.”

“I don’t care about any of that. I only care for you. And I love you so.”

“And I love you. But I have done you wrong-”

“Never!”

“But that night, that terrible night.”

“When I left you?”

“No…when you came to me covered in the Goblin’s fruit.”

“When I saved you?”

Laura shakes at that because it was not the saving that shames her but her response to the method.

“I took more than fruit. And you should not have had to bear it. And I am so wicked, for I would take your kisses again.” What a wretch she is! What a rotten pear, that takes what was not given, attacking with a hungry mouth.

Lizzie had to see that it was not she who had caused Laura’s downfall but Laura’s own sinning heart. Finally she had spoken the truth even if it would be the words that drove Lizzie to hate her.

But Lizzie doesn’t hate her.

She laughs her eyes clear.

“Oh my dear heart. I would do anything for you.”

She learns in secret sharing close and breaths, “There is nothing I have that I would not give you.”

They kiss and there is not cure to be given no reason but a kiss. It is not other worldly and it does not drive her to madness like Goblin’s fruit. But it fills her heart with starlight so much that it must be bursting from her eyes.

“Oh.”

“Yes!” Lizzie laughs and kisses her again.

They help each other to stand and turn towards home.

“You’ll stay with me?” She asks.

“Always,” She replies. “Will you leave me?”

“Never,” she vows.

And they walk hands clasped, together as two things which must go together do, like boats and the sea, like the moon and the sky, like blossoms and bees, like love and blood.

 

Years pass as they are want to do

And both the sisters wives

Married they did and moved to town

Left that cottage to fall in ruin

Bound they remained each in each lives

And in the grey light of morning

They’d hold their daughters to breast

And give them ample warning

For you do not need the country

To have a haunted glen

And they are universal, these wicked goblin men

Who’d lure you into peeping

Then punish you for eating

Their fruits like honey in the throat

But poison in the blood

And the world is full of wicked men and not all in goblin form

So they must cling to each other to face the howling storm

“For there is no friend like a sister

In calm or stormy weather;

To love you when you cannot

Your knight and albatross

To catch you when you fall

A sister’s love out shines all"


End file.
